Retrogression
by MisterBroflovski
Summary: The Shield had spent weeks in a vicious cycle, of falling apart, then piecing back together. But every time they felt whole again, Seth Rollins would take up an offer to rise above his brothers. After leaving the Shield for good, Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns pick up where they left off, but it's a hell of a task. (Rated M for strong language and suggestive scenes).


There was a peak. Somewhere, yes, there was a high point, and somewhere it ended, and somewhere they fell. Far, did they fall, enough to shatter them all to billions and billions of dust-like bits? Unfortunately. Trying to put all those bits back together was chaff, it was impossible and the outcome would be less than desirable. The fact that those three, once upon a time, could be around each other for longer than five seconds without a sour exchange of words or a violent storm of thrown objects was whimsical to say the least. In Dean Ambrose's eyes, no one really cared enough about him to talk about the incident. It was unspoken. As for Roman Reigns, and Seth Rollins, the incident didn't need further explanation than the past itself.

It was all behind them now. Dealing with the aftermath was the task at hand.

It was summer of 2013. The Shield was absolutely dominating, the scripts were evil but fantastic and the matches were empowering and the respect was like no other. But all of that luxury was short lived.

Seth burst through the door with a massive briefcase, a contract, and a ten mile grin. He was sweaty, and exhausted, that was for sure. He felt like absolute shit. He felt the aching misery in his bones and he knew that would linger for weeks. But right now it didn't bother him. He was victorious and it was to the dismay of others, of Dean. That was ideal.

"Roman!"

Roman was already on his feet. And he didn't look pleased to the slightest extent.

"Oh my god, Roman, you _watched_ that, right? Did you see it? Did you _see_ that?"

"What the hell is your problem Rollins?"

"Pff-My—My problem? What do you mean? I won!"

"I thought we talked about this. I thought you would've listened, maybe. You didn't do nothing, but beat the shit out of Dean. I thought you said you were gonna let last month go and back the fuck off!?"

"Are you—are you serious? I just won and you're concerned about the—the relationship between me and Dean? You're not proud you're not…you don't care?!"

"No, I couldn't give less of a shit about your briefcase, I wanna know what's running through your fucking skull right now."

The door cracked open slightly again, and the locker room went quiet.

"Roman, you in here? I uh..need some help with this thing he-"

Dean caught sight of the half-blonde in his locker room and almost chucked an entire first aid kit at his head. "What the fuck is he in here for?!"

Roman set his phone on the table, trying to refrain from squeezing it too hard. This was awful, they were going to start bickering, and Roman was the only person who knew how to fix anything. And honestly, he never really did that good of a job.

"Don't start Dean, I'm not ready to start with you yet. Seth, you'd better get the fuck out of my face before I break it."

Seth giggled, obviously pissed, and turned to leave, making sure he caught Dean's glare, and his shoulder with his own.

Dean dropped the first aid kit and pressed both of his bandaged hands to his eyes, sliding them up through his hair.

"What Roman? What do you want?"

"I had one fucking request for the both of you. I wanted us to fucking forget about the shit that's been happening. I wanted this to get better and it isn't because you two fucked up."

"Did you not see the fucking way he treated me? I wouldn't have done shit if he let me alone."

"You very damn well could have broken his ribs, Dean. You need to have more fucking self-control."

"You gonna kick me outta here too, Roman? You gonna make me patch myself up in the fuckin' bathroom? You won't even spare me the fucking time to walk me over right? I know how this works."

"Dean I never fucki-"

"Nah, don't fuckin' stress yourself."

And like that, Dean was off. Roman slammed the door shut in frustration and dropped like a stone into the couch. The Shield was dead. There was no fixing this, he could feel it. There was a small vibe in the back of his mind that made him very aware of that. He almost felt like he had to fight off tears that weren't even coming. He felt like he should be more upset than he was. Seth was lost. That was for sure, he was onto finer things apparently; Roman had lost Seth. But he prayed, god he prayed, that he hadn't lost Dean. He put his elbows on the table in front of him and buried his face into his palms.

 _Get your ass back in here, Dean, god, please._

Dean was in the handicap stall, with an open first aid kit on the floor, bandages spilling out of it like messy tentacles. He had no fucking clue how to use the finer stuff, he was used to mediocre, makeshift care from tubesocks and scissors. Not to mention, the hydrogen peroxide burned more than the bourbon and the butterfly bandages didn't look like butterflies at all. Were they only for eyebrows or what? What the hell was all this stuff? His ribs ached and his shoulder felt a little out-of-the-socket. It really wasn't, but it hurt that bad and he needed some sort of support to keep from making it feel like he was carrying a hundred pounds of lead in one hand. He was limping a bit as well, taking so many spills in the past 45 minutes from five feet and higher was starting to hurt.

"Fuck it."

Ambrose shoved the mess of medical nonsense back into the little metal box and waited for everyone to clear out of the bathroom before he left the stall.

Roman kept touching his face to ensure what he was experiencing was real. He kept rubbing his eyes, this was exhausting, this felt like trying to put a puzzle together from eight different sets. The silence in the room accompanied by not so steady breath was shattered by the door opening one more time. "I don't care how pissed you are at me, you're helping me fix my fucking chest."

Roman looked up, and felt somewhat of a ray of light shine through his rainclouds. Dean's voice, Dean's stupid, sarcastic, lazy sounding voice.

The younger man sat next to Roman, and tried to avoid any eye contact.

"Look at me Dean."

Dean looked, But at the tip of Roman's nose, not his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I am, really."

"You're so full'a shit, Roman."

Dean threw a quick arm around Roman's shoulders, letting him know he forgives him without having to actually admit anything. "I'm sorry I almost killed Seth."

"Don't be. I'm pretty sure I would have done the same thing."

They shared a mutual snicker and a bit of an awkward silence, fortunately Dean was good at those.

"Do you think you could help me out before we have to leave?"

It was almost ten-thirty and mostly everyone had retired to their respective hotels, save for Dean and Roman, and Seth, wherever he may have been.

"Here, take off your tank top and hand me the ace." Dean did as he was told, tossing his tank top on top of his bag, which was across the room and splayed open as usual. The bandage was probably going to squeeze the shit out of Dean's ribcage knowing Roman's hands. That was okay, it was certainly better than sleeping on the floor with _internal fucking bruises_ and waking up choking to death in the middle of the night. Which had happened, it had been years, but that was certainly something he'd rather not refresh his memory on.

Dean lifted his arm up and winced. Something pulled and tightened and prevented him from moving his arm much further up from his head. "Don't."

Roman put one hand on Dean's elbow and adjusted his arm, trying to make it so he _didn't_ rip something, and had him hold it right there.

Roman reached around Dean's chest, with the roll of bandage in one hand and a stretch of the cloth in the other. As Roman repeated the same wrapping action over and over, then finally looping around his shoulder, Dean just…watched. Not only taking mental notes of how to do this, but…he watched Roman. He was willing to help even after he was a piece of shit. How could he ever let Roman go? He was always there, he was always willing.

Some other things Dean liked about Roman?

His voice.

His eyes.

His tattoo.

His hair.

His _patience._

He was jealous of all those things yes. But he didn't particularly want them for his own, he was more thankful that someone had them, and he was glad they belonged to who they did.

Roman noticed Dean staring, but said nothing of it. He was smart enough to know that he could not afford any slip up now, he had Dean back and he didn't want to ward him off so early. Right now, everything was okay. Seth wasn't on their minds, and they weren't on Seth's mind. For now, things were okay. In the grand scheme of things, no, they were falling apart, the world was burning around them! But this very moment, 10:26 p.m. Sunday night, was absolutely perfect.

"Thanks man."

"Get your stuff, we need'a leave."

The ride back to the hotel was painful. And cold, there was freezing cold tension that despite almost disappearing continued to seep in through the cracks whenever it got the sliver of a chance. Roman and Dean were in a rental car, and Roman being behind the wheel, relied heavily on the sounds coming from the radio to prevent the silence between the passengers from becoming unbearable. Dean was sitting on Roman's right. He continuously glanced at his counterpart, as if he wanted to say something, but whenever words would try to escape from his mind, he stopped them. They were, the majority of them, about Seth. Roman would not want to hear any of that, no. But he was the _only_ thing on Dean's mind.

Ambrose grumbled something into the tension, but it was diffused before it reached Roman's ears.

He was in an unbelievable amount of pain. Seth really-

Seth.

 _Seth_.

God, he was going to break something under this anger. He felt about thirty pounds heavier and his ribs felt like they were going to smash in on themselves, pressure, pressure, tightness, anger, frustration, fuck, fuck, fuck…

Dean hit the dashboard with his hand and shifted in the seat, putting his feet up on the dashboard to hide himself a bit.

He nibbled his bloody knuckles.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"C'mon, what's up?"

Dean shook his head, and let a little bit of that overwhelmed nervous giggle out. He stretched his fingers across the features of his face, and hid under his hand. His mind was flurrying and it was taking a toll on him outside the little comfort zone in his head. Roman noticed, and pulled over to a stretch of asphalt offside a gas station.

"Look at me Dean."

Dean was visibly shaking, his hands, anyway, no matter how dark it was and how hard he was trying to force them to stop. He didn't look this time. He swallowed hard and uncomfortably stared out the windshield at whirring lights that made him almost motion sick.

"Dean."

Roman's voice was getting stern. Seeing Dean like that was concerning.

The younger one of the two was quivering, and covering his mouth, with his fingers lazily draped over most of his face. He was heating up, and his breath was wavering, his chest rising and falling out of sync. He was crying, god, that certainly wasn't where he wanted this night to be going.

"Dean—"

 _I don't want to hurt you but you live for the pain, I'm not trying to say it but it's what you became._

Roman sighed. He saw Dean's composure shatter in a matter of minutes and a sharp pain seemed to pierce through the dead middle of his chest. "Look at me, please Dean."

Dean finally lifted his head up, and dropped his legs, sitting in a straight and normal matter. Still, however, the shiver spread to most of his body and the crying was barely held back by a thread.

Roman threw an arm around Dean's shoulders, and tugged on the collar of his jacket with the other, pulling him into the most calming and reassuring hug he could have possibly performed to the best of his ability.

Dean's throat burned and the sensation reminded him of cinnamon whiskey. His eyes were wet and he kept sniffling and he felt like fucking garbage and that's what finally drove him over the edge and made him throw both of his leather-clad arms around his best friend.

He sobbed. It was silent, but it was there.

Roman's nose began to burn from the feeling of his best friend unraveling in his arms. This sucked, this wasn't "cute", and this surely wasn't any deposit of bullshit scripted "brotherly love". This was the result of a broken man having his every insecurity and peeve be picked at and teased by a man made of malice. This was the result of Seth pushing Dean's every button until there was nothing in Roman's arms but _ribbons_.

"I'm gonna fucking kill him Roman."

"No, you won't. You're not like that."

"They're going to fuc—fucking force m-me to be around him and I'm scared I'm gonna—"

"You won't. You won't Dean."

"What if I do? What the fuck am I supposed to do with myself? I'm g-gonna…I'm gonna seriously fuck him up—I can't help it, I can't…I can't…"

Dean was grabbing fistfuls of the clothes on Roman's back, and his voice was muffled from hiding his face in the other man's shoulder.

Roman was trying to get him to calm down, however his actions rendered themselves useless. Dean was shaking more violently than before, and he was scaring himself, and he kept gibbering on and on about any and every paranoid noise that would waltz into his head and he just…

Could _not_ take any more of it.

Roman's hands took either side of Dean's face. He shifted back far enough to look him in the eye. He was an absolute mess. There were tears shining off of his cheeks and his nose was completely red, not to mention his eyes were dull. No vibrant color. "You're going to be okay," Roman started, his low voice quiet, soft, not reflecting his inner emotion at all. "You understand me? It's all okay."

Dean nodded and went back into his own seat, comfying himself again. "I'm sorry." He managed, wiping his cheek dry with his shirt. "I'm so sorry."


End file.
